Bonds Aim To Give City Colleges Growing Room

December 11, 1985|By Charles Mount.

Plans to move some City Colleges of Chicago classes and offices to a building at 226 W. Jackson Blvd. advanced Tuesday when the Chicago Public Building Commission agreed to issue $38 million in bonds to acquire the building.

The bonds, paying 8.136 percent interest a year, will be sold by the New York-based investment firm of Smith-Barney, Harris Upham & Co., which submitted the lowest bid on the offering. Other bids would have required the commission to pay interest of 8.252 or 8.266 percent.

Brian Kilgallon, the commission`s executive director, said that though interest rates have been dropping he was surprised to get a bid as low as Smith-Barney`s.

``We were just hoping for an interest bid between 8.25 and 9 percent,``

he said.

The Jackson Boulevard building, now vacant, is owned by a trust made up of several Chicago banks. City Colleges plans to move its executive offices there from Loop College, 30 E. Lake St.

Several Loop College classes, including radio-television, hotel management and food preparation, will move to the building, freeing space for other classes and student lounges at Loop.

The commission sells bonds on behalf of governments, school districts and other agencies that have reached the limit of their bond-issuing authority. The commission holds title to the real estate until the bonds are paid off.

Of the $38 million in bonds to be sold, $26 million will be used to buy and renovate the building, Kilgallon said. The remaining $12 million will be used to pay finance costs.

The bonds will be paid off from City Colleges real-estate tax revenue starting in 1987. The $12 million will be used to pay interest between the time the bonds are issued and the time tax revenue becomes available, Kilgallon said.

The bonds are to be paid off in the year 2000, at which time the title will be turned over to City Colleges.